First Grade: Atlanta, 1962
by PenelopeWeaving
Summary: One-shot submitted to Prompts in Panem Everlark Week, October 2012. Day 4: Everlark through the Ages. Baby!Peeta!


The hour after lunch was her favorite part of the day. Ever since she had learned to read – really read, not just words but _actual sentences_ – Katniss had spent the hour after lunch on the bench in the pantry reading a book. Mama didn't need her. Lunch and the clean-up were over, and it was still a few hours before she needed to begin getting ready for dinner.

The Mellarks eat their big meal of the day at night – dinner. Katniss had always had dinner at midday until her parents came to work here. They'd eat their main meal of the day around noon, and then they'd have a light supper later on.

But Missus Mellark likes her dinner at night, so that's what they do.

So many things in her life had changed when they moved from her grandaddy's farm into the cottage in the back of the Mellark's property. But now Daddy was working for Mr. Mellark making deliveries for the bakery, and mama cooked and did whatever else Missus Mellark needed.

Katniss usually helped her mama in small ways – shucking corn, snapping beans, drying dishes. She watched Prim when Grandma took her afternoon nap. Katniss wondered how Mama would get by without her when she started school in a few weeks.

School. The very word filled Katniss with a feeling she'd never felt before: tingles of anticipation. Sitting in the pantry, she hugged her book to her and imagined the unimaginable. First grade. A kind teacher. Friends on all sides who would be excited to learn – just like her.

As she sat there hugging her book, the pantry door opened, and a bright blonde head popped in. Peeta. She smiled automatically. If there was one person who made her feel as excited as the prospect of going to school, it was Peeta. He was her only friend. Well, her only friend _so far_. She hoped in a few weeks they would have loads of friends.

"Hi!" he whispered a little too loudly.

"Shhh," she said with a giggle in her voice. She scooted over to make room for him. She noticed that he had brought a book of his own this time.

"What is that?" she asked.

He beamed at her. "I got it for you!" he said, shoving the book in her lap. "When we were at the library this morning, I heard a girl saying it was her favorite book." Peeta still talked like a baby, his _r_'s soft and doughy. When he said girl, it sounded more like gull. Katniss loved to hear him speak.

Katniss looked at the cover. _Little House in the Big Woods. _She had never heard of it before, and her brow wrinkled as she opened it.

"Do you think you'll like it?" Peeta asked anxiously.

She looked up and saw the worry on his face. She smiled at him to reassure him. "Of course, Peeta," she said. "Should we get started?"

She had been teaching him to read for the last few months, and he was almost as good as she was. He would be ready when they both started first grade.

* * *

Katniss overheard her parents talking that night. She could hear worry in her mother's voice, but her father's natural confidence reassured his wife, who was prone to fretting.

"I hate that she has to do this," her mother had whispered. "She's too young to have to face something like this."

"She's strong. She can handle this, and someone has to be first."

"I guess. I just wish it didn't have to be _us_."

"We left dad's farm so the girls could get a good education, Mari. This is what we've always wanted for them."

"It just shouldn't have to be her and _now_. This should have happened _years_ago."

They were quiet after that.

* * *

Katniss knew she had to take some kind of test in order to start first grade at Druid Hills, and she also knew that Peeta didn't have to take the test.

He had tried to explain it to her.

"I think some people don't want you to come to my school." He'd said it like it was a question. Katniss understood from his tone that he was holding something back. "They want to make sure you're smart enough first."

"Because I'm black?" she asked. Peeta looked embarrassed. "Do _you _think I'm smart enough?"

"You're the smartest person I know!" he said.

And though that made Katniss feel better, she had begun to worry.

More than anything, she really wanted to go to Peeta's school. Her other choice was to attend classes at the church down the street, but months ago she'd heard Daddy saying that he wanted a real school for Katniss. Ever since then, the church classes just didn't seem good enough.

* * *

Katniss was trying to keep her sister extra quiet. It was raining and they couldn't go outside, but Missus Mellark had two friends over. Prim was playing with her doll, and Katniss was busy setting up a pretend school room in a corner of the kitchen when she realized her sister had wandered off. She was just starting to look around when she heard the voices in the parlor get louder.

"What a lovely child!" exclaimed one of the women. "Such beautiful blonde curls!"

"Who is this?" said the other.

Katniss made it to the parlor just in time to see Missus Mellark getting up from her chair.

"I'm sorry, Missus Mellark," she said hastily, grabbing her sister's hand and leading her away. She was out the door without making eye contact.

When they reached the hall, she gave her sister a gentle push towards the kitchen while she stayed just outside the parlor door.

"Those are the daughters of our new housekeeper," she heard Missus Mellark say.

"Those girls are _sisters_?" one of the women gasped.

Missus Mellark lowered her voice, but Katniss could just hear her. "Their father is _black_."

She whispered the last word as if it were poison on her tongue.

* * *

The morning of the test, Mama made her wear her best dress, the red plaid one, and she even put small yellow ribbons on the end of each of her braids. They didn't really match, but Mama said it looked fancy.

The school was very large, and Katniss was afraid she would get lost if she did get to go here. Her father brought her to the office, and the secretary in a tight, knee-length skirt and very high heels took her into a room down a hallway. Katniss sat at a large table, her arms barely reaching the surface. She felt small. The woman put a test booklet in front of her and asked her to write her name in a box. She used her most careful handwriting to fill the space. When she finished, the woman picked the test back up, read the instructions to her for the first question, and then walked away so Katniss could circle the correct answer.

The question was a simple math problem, and when Katniss finished it, she looked ahead to the next. Before she knew it, she had finished half of the page, and the woman had returned to look over her shoulder.

"You can read?" she asked.

"Yes ma'am," Katniss said.

"Well!" The woman seemed annoyed and sort of hummed in disapproval. For some reason she couldn't quite explain, Katniss felt proud in that moment. The woman left her then to finish the test, her heels clicking all the way back down the hall.

And the questions were easy. When she finished and returned to the office where her father was waiting, she skipped into his arms.

"It was easy, Daddy!" she laughed. "I'll get to go to school with Peeta! I know I will!"

Julian Everdeen knelt down to his daughter's level and looked in her beaming face. "I'm so proud of you, birdy. So proud."

* * *

"Why do you like me?" Katniss asked Peeta. They were sitting on the bench in the pantry again, and Peeta was telling her about the crawdads he had found today in the creek beside their house. She had wanted to go with him, but Mama had needed her help.

Peeta looked at her, surprised and momentarily pulled out of his contemplation of water bugs. Katniss scowled as she waited to hear his answer.

He scooted over towards her, bumping her and pushing her further down the bench. "I don't know," he said bashfully.

"Your mother doesn't like me 'cause I'm black," she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

He reached out and gently tugged her hair. "I like your braids."

* * *

The letter came in the mail two weeks after she had taken the test:

_Dear Mr. Everdeen,_

_This letter is to inform you that your daughter, Katniss Everdeen, has been granted admission to the first grade at Druid Hills. She may report to the school on Monday, September 10, 1962 in order to begin her matriculation._

_Sincerely,_

_Coriolanus Snow  
Dekalb County School Superintendent_

* * *

It was a ladies' luncheon, her mother said. Missus Mellark was having her friends over, and Mama had needed Katniss to help all morning. She had made tiny chicken salad sandwiches while her mother had scooped melon into bite-sized balls and carved the melon rind into the shape of a bowl with scalloped edges.

Katniss had never seen anything so pretty. She wanted to eat it up.

As they laid out the buffet in the dining room, the doorbell rang.

"Mari!" Missus Mellark's voice rang from upstairs. "Get the door! I'll be down in a moment!"

Katniss laid the tray of sandwiches carefully on the buffet, and her mother shooed her back to the kitchen before heading towards the door.

Missus Mellark made it down the stairs as Mari Everdeen opened the door. She breezed past her and welcomed her first two guests into the house.

As the parlor filled up, Katniss watched her mama make trips back and forth between the parlor and the kitchen, refilling tea pitchers and appetizer trays. When the women finally made their way to the dining room, her mother sat down to rest.

"Whew!" she said. She used her towel to wipe her brow. "I don't know how I'm going to make this work when you're off to school in a few weeks!"

She looked proudly at Katniss, but Katniss could only focus on her words.

"Mama, will you get in trouble with Missus Mellark? If you don't have lunch ready on time?" Her brow furrowed at the thought of her mother working by herself.

But her mother just smiled at her. "No, Birdy. I'll be fine. Don't you worry."

The timer went off, and Mrs. Mellark got up and opened the oven. Reaching for her hotpads, she pulled a baking sheet of crescent rolls out of the oven.

"Katniss," she said, quickly removing the rolls from the pan to a basket lined with a linen napkin, "Take these in there while they're still hot."

When Katniss walked into the dining room, the women had already served themselves and were sitting around the table. She approached Missus Mellark with the basket.

"I was wondering where these were," she said, her voice sharp.

"Yes ma'am," Katniss replied.

Missus Mellark opened the folded ends of the napkin and took a roll. "Take them around the table, Katniss," she said.

Katniss made her way around the table offering rolls one by one to the women. She could feel their eyes following her, and the silence in the room mounted.

As she was almost finished, Katniss approached a woman who made no move to take a roll. Instead the woman pursed her lips and said, "So is this the child?"

Katniss froze, unsure of what to do. She kept her eyes on the bread basket.

"Yes, Joan, this is the one," Missus Mellark said warily.

Another woman spoke up. "She's not _so very_ dark, is she? She could almost look Oriental, couldn't she?"

Katniss felt her skin burning in embarrassment.

The woman in front of Katniss had decided she did want the bread after all. She took a roll from the basket as she said, "Well this right here then is why we're enrolling Madge in Westminster. We're not at all interested in mixing with the likes of _this_."

Katniss moved with some trepidation to the last woman at the table, trying to keep her eyes from filling with angry tears. She closed her eyes tightly for a moment and then blinked rapidly as she offered her the bread.

When she realized the last woman still had not taken a roll, she dared a glance at her. The woman was looking at her with kind concern. Katniss stared back a moment until the woman murmured, "No, thank you."

Katniss escaped from the room.

* * *

She had never before gone shopping for school supplies, but the trip to the Rite-Aid drug store just added to the excitement she felt about going to school.

Standing in the aisle, she looked at the black and white marbled cover of the notebook they were buying. The clean, white pages seemed endless. She couldn't imagine that she would actually fill up all of these pages. But she was excited to begin.

* * *

Missus Mellark didn't like it whenever daddy came into the house. They all had to enter by the back door, which Katniss thought was silly when you're coming from the street, but even when he came in through the back door, Katniss could tell that Missus Mellark didn't like it.

Katniss was polishing silver one afternoon while Missus Mellark and her mother discussed dinner plans. As they talked, Julian Everdeen came in through the back door.

"Afternoon everybody," he said pleasantly to the room as he put two baguettes on the kitchen counter.

Missus Mellark's face froze in a look of thinly hidden disdain. Julian took off his hat and nodded to the women at the stove before going over to Katniss at the table.

"Hey, Kat-Bird," he said, planting a kiss on the side of her forehead. "I'm heading out to make a few deliveries. Do you want to come with me?"

Katniss looked up at her mother with excited pleas in her eyes.

"Go on, girl," she said, working to contain her smile. "I'll finish up for you."

Katniss caught the look of contempt on her face as Missus Mellark looked away.

* * *

Katniss was getting Prim ready for bed when there was a knock at the door. Mama was still at the Mellarks, and Daddy had run around to the corner store for a newspaper.

She looked through the front window to see who it was. Peeta was fidgeting with a small, brown paper bag on her front step.

When she opened the door, he smiled at her and shoved the bag towards her as he excitedly said, "This is for you!"

Katniss smiled but felt suddenly shy. She opened the bag and put her hand down in it. Her fingers brushed up against something soft. She pulled out two small grosgrain ribbons. They were red.

"They're for your braids! To go with your red dress!" He seemed very pleased with himself and beamed at her.

"They're beautiful," she said softly. "How did you know I was going to wear my red dress tomorrow?"

"Cause that's the dress you always wear on special 'casions." He was clearly proud of his knowledge as he began counting on his fingers. "You wore it the first day you came in to meet us. And you wore it when your granddaddy came to visit that time. And when you went to take the test. And you always wear yellow ribbons, so I thought you should have red ones! So I made Daddy take me to Mr. Wise's Five-and-Dime today, and I used my own money, and I paid the man myself!"

Katniss saw the proud look on his face. She felt embarrassed by his affection, but also her heart beat a little faster.

And she knew she needed to thank him.

She put the ribbons back in the bag and put it down on the ground. Then, very deliberately, she put her hands on Peeta's shoulders. She leaned forward and kissed him, quickly, decidedly, but without much thought.

His face flushed red, and she thought he looked a little like one of the fish in Missus Mellark's pond - round eyes, round face, mouth shaped like a surprised O.

She picked up the bag. "I'll see you tomorrow, Peeta," she said, and she walked back inside, closing the door behind her.

* * *

Daddy drove her to school that first morning. She should have ridden a bus, but Mama was worried about it and thought they should take her at least for the first few days.

He talked quietly to her in the car on the short drive. Katniss was nervous. She knew she was supposed to be excited - she had been excited for weeks. But now that the day was here, she couldn't shake the anxiety that crept up her spine and spread worry into her face, across her forehead and between her eyes.

When they pulled up to the school, Daddy parked on a side street. He turned off the ignition and looked at her. His smile was easy and warm, and though she could tell he had worry, too, just looking into his eyes made her feel stronger. Ready.

He held her hand as they walked up the sidewalk. There were two police cars parked in front of the school, and children made their way towards the building from all directions. As they stood on the sidewalk at the crosswalk, a father and daughter approached from the opposite direction.

The girl was deep in conversation with her father, talking about all the flowers she had planted, when she noticed Katniss and her father. The girl stopped talking abruptly, and surprise showed on her face. She looked at Katniss and then at her daddy, not bothering to hide her curiosity. When her eyes finally returned to Katniss, she looked her square in the eyes, and her eyebrows furrowed.

"Daddy, who's that?" the girl whispered. But they were standing right next to them, and Katniss could hear every word. Katniss looked up at her daddy to see what he was doing but he just smiled back at Katniss.

Just then the crossing guard whistled to stop traffic and allow the pedestrians to cross

As they approached the sidewalk, Katniss saw a mother dragging her child quickly towards the school, her eyes locked on Mr. Everdeen and Katniss.

They began to climb the steps to the school, and a man coming down the steps, brushed past her daddy, knocking him back a step and off balance.

"Daddy!" Katniss cried.

"I'm OK, Birdy," he said, catching himself and righting himself before he fell. He resumed climbing the stairs with Katniss' hand firmly in his. She could see the worry more pronounced on his face.

Suddenly Katniss began to doubt what she was doing here at this school for white children. She looked around the great expanse of grass leading up to the school, and nowhere did she see a friendly face. Nowhere was there a face like hers.

Maybe the classes at the church wouldn't be so bad after all.

The noise of a school bus drew her attention, and she stopped to watch as it pulled up in front of the school.

"Katniss!"

She could hear Peeta's voice, but she couldn't see him.

"Katniss!" There he was, waving from a window. She gave a short wave back and watched as he moved to the front of the bus.

And then he was running up the steps, his book bag bouncing on his hip. He beamed at her, giving her his most eager smile, the one that always made her feel both emboldened and protective of him.

Daddy had turned when he heard Peeta calling. He smiled down at Peeta and said, "Peeta, you should have ridden to school with us. Well, no matter now. Why don't we all walk in together?"

Peeta smiled and reached for Katniss' hand as they began walking towards the building. Mr. Everdeen walked behind them, a small smile on his face and his eyes looking towards the open doors.

* * *

**Notes:**

With its ruling in Brown vs. The Board of Education, the Supreme Court declared state-sponsored segregation unconstitutional in 1954. At that point, southern states slowly began acquiescing to this decision. However, in many states, it was a very slow process. Many mayors and governors chose to close schools rather than desegregate them.

In September of 1961, nine black students enrolled in four Atlanta area high schools.

In September of 1962, fifty-three black students enrolled in seven area schools - including elementary schools.

Several schools made incoming black students take aptitude tests upon registration.


End file.
